srijeda, 16. listopada 2013.

James Unsworth - I Am Poor, I Am Boring & Ninja Turtle Sex Museum

James Unsworth's
illustrations feature a no-holds-barred graphic sensibility that is
undeniably as disturbing as it is awesome. Unsworth uses scratchy,
informal linework to depict his dripping, goopy, twisted goblin
characters as they engage in all kinds of inexplicable activities.
Unsworth's work has a latent sense of morbid humor. We love artwork that
makes you laugh uncomfortably, and Unsworth is the right guy for this
kind of art-viewing experience. www.juxtapoz.com/

Ninja Turtle Sex Museum by James Unsworth: A Review

The first solo exhibition from Amelia's
Magazine favourite James Unsworth was held at the Five Hundred Dollars
Gallery on Vyner Street in September 2010. I stumbled across the closing
party...

I first came across James Unsworth
on the walls of the Royal College of Art. His MA final show stood out
like, well, an erect penis. His work is known for erect penises, and
poo, and sexual depravity in many different guises. A true modern day
harbinger of the grotesque, James draws on the most bestial parts of
human nature to create awesome works of art.
Last month I unexpectedly came across his work on the walls of uber trendy fashion shop Machine-A, and then by chance I stumbled across the closing throes of his first solo exhibition at the Five Hundred Dollars gallery in Vyner Street. It featured the finely detailed line drawings he is so well known for, and so much more….
James Unsworth wallpaper in Machine-A.
Vyner Street on First Thursday is a ridiculously busy hum of art
scene activity which I tend to avoid, but last week I made it along to
meet some friends. “Is there anything worth seeing before I have a
pint?” I asked. “Well, there’s some Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
fucking,” was the reply. A gigantic bell rang in the recesses of my
mind… as soon as I turned in the door I instantly recognised Unsworth.
It’s typical of James Unsworth
to create an entire exhibition out of a 1980s cartoon for children:
mutated and subverted and turned completely on it’s head. On one side of
a small booth at the front of the first room a glass cabinet displayed
mugs for each of the turtles… shitting in mid air. I have no idea what
the names of the turtle characters are since their heyday was a bit late
for my childhood, but I have no doubt that many visitors to the gallery
recognised them. “I have a big problem with the elitist aspect of most
art galleries,” James Unsworth told Jayne Helliwell in 2007 for issue 08 of Amelia’s Magazine. “I want my work to appeal to a wider audience outside the art elite.”
Scenes from Ninja Turtle Sex Museum, the book, available for £15.
And so it made perfect sense to sell gift mugs, t-shirts in pizza
boxes, stickers and art books. Within the booth was James himself,
watching over the room as hoards of people wandered around, some talking
loudly about how repulsive and terrible his art was. None of it, of
course, phased James in the least. In an interview with Don’t Panic
he claimed that “I enjoy watching people looking at my work; it’s a
voyeuristic pleasure.” The greatest offence would be to pass by his work
unmoved. After all, he didn’t paint a two metre high Ninja Turtle
defecating beneath an erect penis in order to avoid controversy.
James Unsworth talks to gallery-goers.
It’s testimony to James Unsworth’s singular vision that the room was
full at all times, with queues of people waiting their turn to poke an
eye to the head of said erect penis in order to view a movie of four men
dressed up in green plastic to look like turtles squirting semen-like
paint all over each other and into anus like crevices as they carved at
each other with fake retractable knives covered in ketchup goo. Another
turtle offered up his anus as an alternative viewing platform for the
film, stumpy bleeding severed legs held aloft. We wondered at the fun
James and his friends must have had in the creation of this video art.
A still from Ninja Turtle Sex Museum: the movie.“The Ninja Turtles just got back from Bangladesh and are waiting
for the pizza to arrive, one of them finds the deadly ecstasy next to
their stinking mattress in their sewer lair. You thought drugs were fun,
right? But who could have imagined the horror and panic that find would
bring? When they decide to take them with their beer and pizza, it all
begins well, they dance. But soon they turn to fighting each other, the
fighting turns quickly to lustful and murderous activity… Previously
they had all wanked on the pizza too.”
The last part of this statement says it all really – James just loves
to reach the epitome of grotesque bad taste, and then pile yet more on
top.
Peering through the holes.
One wall was lined with beautifully decorated ceramic plates, severed
turtle heads surround by decorative patterns of flowers and bloody
carving knives. Prints lined up on a wall showed men with putrefying
eyeballs kissing laughing penises, turtles in masks rimming each other,
and lots and lots of wanking.
A decorative plate.
Naked ladies touched themselves in what would be an erotic manner if
it weren’t for their green wrapped turtle heads with bulging cartoon
eyes peering through the instantly recognisable headband, an empty box
of beer worn as triumphant headgear.
And yet, I couldn’t find any of this repulsive or even offensive.
Amusing, yes. A thought provoking commentary on our obsession with
violence and sex? Certainly. Alongside a sheer amazement at his
dedication towards such a whole-hearted re-imagining of pop culture
characters that were such a big part of his generation’s childhood.
And I wasn’t alone, for amongst the feigning of disgust there was
much hilarity in the Five Hundred Gallery, and an insatiable need to
keep looking. James Unsworth
forces us to confront the basest elements of humanity by transferring
the unthinkable onto anodyne childrens’ cartoon characters. Then making a
joyful song and dance about it.
Scenes from Ninja Turtle Sex Museum, the book.“Our new exhibition is about Ninja Turtles with big cocks, sex
and death and it’s all free! It will be absolutely the best exhibition
you have ever seen. No mistake. It’s a violent, exhibition full of
taboos. It’s up to you to see it or not. Are you ready?”
Unfortunately it’s all over now. But do go check out his website,
where you can buy some suitably disgusting prints. No doubt there will
be some pooing Ninja Turtle mugs for sale on there some time soon.
I Am Poor, I Am Boring by James Unsworth.

Flatform - Quantum + Trento Symphonia + Movements of an Impossible Time + A Place to Come + Can Not Be Anything Against the Wind + 57.600 Seconds of Invisible Night and Light + Sunday 6th April, 11:42 a.m. + About zero + With Nature There Are no Special Effects, Only Consequences (f)

Ben Rivers - The Sky Trembles and the Earth is Afraid and the Two Eyes are not Brothers (f)

Cheryl Frances-Hoad - Glory Tree (m)

Thomas Adès - The Twenty-Fifth Hour (m)

Daníel Bjarnason - Over Light Earth + Processions + Solaris (m)

Dobrinka Tabakova - String Paths (m)

Jacek Sienkiewicz - Nomatter (m)

Veli-Matti Puumala - Anna Liisa (m)

Bill Douglas - Trilogy: My Childhood, My Ain Folk, My Way Home (f)

DIALECT - Gowanus Drifts (m)

Robert Enrico - Au coeur de la vie (f)

Kara-lis Coverdale & LXV - Sirens (m)

Uljana Wolf - i mean i dislike that fate that i was made to where (b)

Mempo Giardinelli - Sultry Moon (b)

Jean-Marie Straub - Dialogue d'ombres (f)

Klaus Hoffer - Among the Bieresch (b)

Maxim Biller - U glavi Brune Schulza (b)

Svend Åge Madsen - Days with Diam + Virtue & Vice in the Middle Time (b)